No China deal without freedom of two Michaels

This Christmas, thanks to COVID-19, millions of Canadians are facing the prospect of spending the holidays alone. The internet is rife with advice on how to make the most of solitude while keeping it together, and survive the holidays without seeing our families.

Now imagine that you've missed two Christmases with your loved ones, and every other day in between. You haven't spent those days in the comfort of your home, either; you've spent them in a cramped cell, in a foreign country, where the lights have been kept on 24 hours a day and you have been repeatedly interrogated for hours on end.

That is the reality Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have endured, for the past two years, as prisoners in China.

The two Michaels, as they have become known, were arrested by Chinese state authorities nine days after the detention of Huawei executive Meng Wenzhou in Vancouver in December 2018. Meng was charged, on a U.S. warrant, with wire and bank fraud in relation to dealings that a Huawei subsidiary, Skycom, had with Iran, allegedly in violation of American sanctions. Spavor and Kovrig were accused of espionage, though the nature of the charges against the two, a businessman and a former diplomat, remain unspecified.

This was not, as the Chinese government ludicrously maintains, a coincidence. All three individuals are pawns in the defining geopolitical chess game of our age. However, unlike Meng, who has spent the past two years under house arrest in her B.C. mansion while armies of lawyers fight her extradition, the two Michaels have had no access to counsel, limited contact with the outside world, and have been subjected to severe human rights violations.

The Canadian government has also been played, utterly powerless.

The Canadian government has also been played, utterly powerless in its attempts to secure its citizens' release. Currently, the U.S. is reportedly in talks to arrange for Meng's return to China in exchange for a plea of wrongdoing. Will this result in freedom for Kovrig and Spavor? Experts are skeptical; in an interview with CTV news, former diplomat Colin Robertson summed it up this way: “We've been used by the Americans and we've certainly been abused by the Chinese, and the two Michaels are the real victims in this whole tragedy.”

Indeed. This affair has turned from a test of Canada's relationship with China to a test of our relationship with the United States. Canada followed the rule of law, respected the extradition treaty we have with our greatest ally, and incurred the wrath of Beijing as a result. Chinese trade sanctions on canola, soybean, beef, and pork exports contributed to a 16-per-cent decline of Canadian exports to China in 2019. Now that the United States is seeking a deal over Meng, it should honour Canada's stance and help secure Spavor and Kovrig's release, or risk weakening relations between Ottawa and Washington.

It also risks sending a damning signal to other American allies, notably in Europe. In a recent interview with Politico, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed the importance of a transatlantic alliance to counter China.

“To protect Europe, we need the transatlantic bond, we need North America, the U.S. and Canada. Any attempt to go alone, either for Europe or for North America, would be bad for all of us. We need to stand together.”

China's quest for global hegemony has been decades in the making. It has leveraged its market size, state capitalist model, and economic power to become the world's most aggressive lender, research funder, builder of infrastructure, and manufacturer. All while building a domestic surveillance state that makes Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four look like a children's story.

Unlike COVID-19, there is no vaccine against totalitarianism. Fighting its advance is a constant battle. Any U.S. deal to drop charges against Meng must not even be considered without the release of the two Michaels. They need the resolve and the help of Canada's allies, standing up together to China. And their families need them home.